A 12-year-old boy from Chennai has created history by becoming the world’s second youngest Chess Grand Master (GM). He currently holds the second spot in the Gredine Open after defeating all his skilful opponents.

Credit: Wikipedia

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, 12, already had achieved a title of youngest International Master ever in the history at the age of 10 years, 10 months and 19 days. Now he is second to only Sergey Karjakin, of Ukraine, who became the world’s youngest Grandmaster in 1990, reports the Times of India.

The Gredine Open held in Ortisei, Italy, has seen this young grandmaster showing his ingenious moves and defeated brilliant players like Iran’s Aryan Gholami, and Italian Grandmaster (GM) Luca Moroni. The Chennai boy took the upper hand in the match at its outset, and held on, playing attacking chess, eventually forcing Moroni to buckle under the pressure mid-game reported BetterIndia.

The first eight rounds was cakewalk for this young boy but in order to achieve his third GM norm, he had to play an opponent above the rating of 2482 in the ninth round. Luckily for him, he was drawn with Pruijssers Roland, of the Netherlands, who had a 2514 rating, and thus, he became the second chess player, to become a GM, before he turned 13. Praggnanandhaa had already achieved his first GM norm in the World Juniors 2017, and then his second GM norm, at the closed round-robin Herkalion Fischer Memorial GM Norm tournament in Greece. He has also crossed 2500 Elo rating points.

In the Gredine Open, currently, Rameshbabu is in the second spot next only to Croatian GM Saric Ivan.